Making Tartine’s Basic Country Loaf

Tartine Country Loaf

I’ve been a huge fan of San Francisco’s Tartine bakery. Whenever I make it up to the bay area I make it a point to plan my trip around the bakery. A couple of years ago I bought the Tartine cookbook and it’s been one of my favorites ever since.

This last Christmas I was lucky enough to receive the new Tartine Bread cookbook and this loaf was my first attempt at Chad’s recipe. This recipe is complicated, so if you’ve never made bread with a natural levain, this book is probably not for you. The trick to this bread is learning how to do the “turns” and having patience with your sourdough starter (watching this video really helped to see how the folds and shaping happen).

I ended up killing my first starter and later realized I was under-feeding my second. I quickly figured out the right flour/water ratio and I was good to go.

Although I was extremely happy with the appearance and flavor of the bread, the texture was not exactly what I wanted, so I’m making a new loaf as we speak.

One thing that making this bread lead me to was the fantastic bread forum and community over at The Fresh Loaf. The people over there are so friendly and I learned an ENORMOUS amount just from reading the posts on the various forums. A true resource!

Stumbled upon your post… have to say your bread looks fabulous! I've tried tartine's recipe in a dutch oven a few times only with varying levels of success… but your photo makes me downright jealous. Nice photography! And yes, TFL is a great forum.